An Ever Fixed Mark
by mosylu
Summary: In which Cisco and Caitlin have dinner together, hold hands, snuggle, and make out. Which is pretty weird for two people who don't have each other's names on their arms. A soulmate AU, written for Flash Ladies Month 2016


Cisco straightened up when he saw her. "Heyyyyy, Caitlin."

She shook her head. "Let's get out of here."

"Bail all taken care of?" he chirped as the cop unlocked the holding cell.

She rolled her eyes. "As always."

"Awesome." He spun and shoved his fist in the air. "Stay strong, singularities!" The fluorescent overhead lights shone on the skin of his bare forearm.

Caitlin could tell which of Cisco's cellmates had been arrested along with him at the rally by who cheered and punched the air, showing off their own blank forearms.

The rest - in the holding cell waiting to be charged with drug dealing, drunk and disorderly, assault and battery, murder, who knew what - made nauseated faces or looked away. Some of them touched their own forearms, running their fingers along the black-lettered name in their skin as if to reassure themselves that it was still there.

He bounced along next to her, behind the cop, as if he'd spent the day playing video games instead of getting arrested. "Yo, I'm starving," he said. "Can we stop for burritos?"

"Sure," she said. Actually, that might be a good idea. She was hungry, and she'd had such a miserable day that she wanted out of her own head. But it really depended on whether Cisco was going to rant about no-mate rights all night. She didn't think she could listen to that.

It felt like years ago that she'd been ranting right along with him, going to the rallies and defiantly holding Jay's hand, ignoring the whispers of "a cheater and a blank" when they went out, and the way that people snubbed them when they saw Caitlin had a name on her arm and Jay had none, the way mothers pulled their children away as if either condition were contagious.

Had it only been months?

"Sweeeeet," Cisco said happily, visions of sour cream and guacamole dancing in his eyes. "I'll even pay for it."

"It's the least you can do since I sprang for your bail," she said.

"Hey, don't I always pay you back?"

She smiled at him. "Yes. Yes, you do."

As they signed the last of the paperwork at the front desk and retrieved his personal items, he said, "So how was your day off?"

"I don't want to talk about it," she mumbled.

He studied her, his eyes compassionate. "Should we get beers along with the burritos?"

"Yeah, maybe."

He put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick side hug, resting his chin on her shoulder. She leaned against him, closing her eyes for a moment.

When she straightened up, he let her go. "For reals, thanks," he said quietly. "It would've been a long night if you hadn't picked up the phone."

"Yeah?"

He nodded solemnly. "I mean, no Pokemon Go? A really long night."

She elbowed him, and he lurched dramatically to one side, grinning.

The grin dropped off his face suddenly as he spotted something over her shoulder. His eyes narrowed. "This guy," Cisco snarled. "I gotta give this guy a piece of my mind."

"Cisco - "

"He called me a filthy blank. More than once, and right to my face. To my face!" He turned on the officer, who was rolling his eyes and making no effort to hide it. "Look, dude, I am a human being, okay? Just because I don't have some stranger's name on my arm doesn't make me lesser. I have _value_. I have _feelings_. I'm not a sociopath or an overgrown child. I am capable of love and affection. And my friend here, it's not her fault that - "

"Cisco!" she snapped. "Let's go."

"But - "

"His name is Officer Guggenheim, his badge number is 5647981, and we'll be calling his captain in the morning." She narrowed her eyes at the officer, who curled his lip back, clearly unafraid of reprimands. "For now, let's go." She grabbed Cisco's hand and tugged him away.

He must have realized he'd been about to go a step too far, bringing her into it, because he let her drag him out of the precinct, pausing only to fire one final shot over his shoulder. "I feel really sorry for your soulmate, being shackled to a prize asshole like you!"

* * *

Over burritos, he talked about the rally, but when he started to cue up video of the speeches on his phone, she held up her hand. "Not tonight, okay?"

"But this is important. This affects you, too - "

"Look, I know all about the legal rights you're fighting for. The anti-discrimination ordinances, the right to divorce, the right to marry a non-soulmate, the right to name your own next of kin. I know all about my own passing privilege as a lost-mate."

"Acquired Singularity," he said.

She rolled her eyes. "I honestly don't mind the term lost-mate, Cisco. It's a perfect description of what happened."

Ronnie. Her soulmate.

Lost.

They'd found each other their senior year of college, and been married a day later. Why wait? When your arm matched their name, what was the point? You knew it was meant to be.

It wasn't as if weddings were huge affairs anyway. All you had to do was go to the nearest registrar, present ID and arms, wait as they were checked against each other, and sign the soulmate certification. Just like that, you were married, and now you simply had to call your friends and family to let them know you'd finally found the one you were looking for.

It was far more difficult to call all your friends and family to say that you'd lost him again, in a blaze of fire and lightning, on a night that should have been a professional triumph for your whole company.

She sat back. "I just can't listen to it tonight."

Cisco reached across the table. "I'm sorry."

She looked at their fingers, woven together. "I'm having a hard time right now," she admitted in a low voice.

His hand squeezed around hers. "I know."

"It's not that I don't support the movement," she said, her voice trembling. "It's not that I don't believe in everything you're fighting for. It's not that I don't recognize how it impacts me and my legal rights. It's just that right now, after all the things that happened with Jay, there's this awful little voice in my head that's saying, 'that's what you get for being a cheater - '"

"Hey, just because you're talking about yourself doesn't make it any less of a slur - "

"'- and dating a no-mate,'" she finished.

Cisco pulled his hand away.

"I said it was awful," she told him. "I hate myself for even letting it cross my mind. But - it's there. And I don't feel like I can even go near the movement until I've at least banished it from my mind."

"Jay wasn't a homicidal megalomaniac because he was a no-mate," Cisco said, even forgetting to use his own preferred terminology.

"I know. He was a homicidal megalomaniac because there was something fundamentally broken in him, something that had nothing to do with his soulmate status, and he was so good at hiding it that he fooled all of us."

Her friend's face had softened again. "I hate myself for encouraging you to date him. I really, really do. I'm so sorry."

"Cisco. Stop. You've already apologized so many times, and you couldn't've known. But do you understand why I feel the need for some distance?"

"Yeah, I do, and I respect that." He grimaced. "Even if I did call you to bail me out tonight. Honestly, take all the time you need. But please, don't let this shut you down forever, okay? Just because you lost your soulmate, it doesn't mean you lost all right to friendship and fun and purpose and even maybe romance, even if it didn't work out with Jay."

She shook her head. "I don't know about that last part."

"Look, I know everybody says it's impossible, but I've seen impossible with my own eyes. People who thought their life was over, and they meet a Singularity or another A.S, and they fall in love."

Caitlin shook her head again. Was it really love if they weren't your soulmate? Most people said no. It was companionship or lust or lonely desperation. Not love.

He raised his brows at her. "I hear some of them even have a name appear on their arm."

"Only point-five percent of all soulmated people get the name after the age of twenty-one."

"Maybe it'd be higher if the world didn't constantly tell Singularities and A.S.'s that their life was worthless without their soulmate. Maybe they need to get out in the world, meet somebody and fall in love and become their soulmate."

"That's not how soulmates work!"

"Nobody knows how soulmates work! Nobody knows how or why the names appear. Yeah, mostly it seems random, but what if that is how it works sometimes? Maybe people are missing out because our screwed-up culture practically forces Singularities and A.S's to spend the rest of their lives sobbing face-down on their beds with the curtains drawn."

"Don't exaggerate."

"I'm not exaggerating that much."

Caitlin thought of the way people looked at her and talked to her once they found out she was a widow. Hushed voices, sad eyes. As if she were already dead. She thought of the statistics on lost-mate suicides, which in any other group would have been called a national mental-health crisis, but was simply, sadly accepted because, after all, they'd lost their soulmate.

What reason was there to live anymore?

Maybe that was one of the reasons she'd been so willing to date Jay. Just to feel like she was alive again.

"Caitlin, I swear I'm not gonna force you out of the house or anything. Really really. You take all the time you need because Jay - ? That was one hell of a blow."

She nodded, digging a chip into the extra guacamole he'd ordered for her.

"But don't take any more time than you need, okay? Don't let yourself fall into that trap. Ronnie's gone, but you still deserve to be happy. Whether you're alone or with somebody or whatever. You get to be happy."

She nodded. "I know. I'm trying to get there. I really am."

"You know what we're gonna do?"

"Nooooo," she said. She knew. It was a denial.

"We're gonna recite the pledge."

"Cisco!"

"Come on! Get that hand up. Look, the longer you delay, the better the chances that I'm gonna jump on this table and lead this whole taco shop in the pledge."

"It's ten o'clock at night. There are seven people here, max."

"We'll still probably get thrown out," he said gleefully. "Up, up, up!"

She raised her right hand, rolling her eyes.

"I, Francisco Armando Ramon - " He paused and waited for her.

"I, Caitlin Esther Snow - " she grumbled.

"Am a whole person."

"Am a whole person."

"I have value intrinsic to myself."

"I have value intrinsic to myself."

"I deserve respect, affection, and connection."

She felt her throat knot. "I deserve respect, affection, and connection."

"I am a whole person."

"I am a whole person."

He smiled at her and put his hand down.

The girl who'd taken their order at the counter appeared, her face sour. "Are you almost done here?"

Cisco looked up, his face mild. "Yeah, getting there."

"Well, we need the table."

Caitlin looked around the taco shop. "Oh, yes," she said. "I can see you're just slammed. There must be a whole one person waiting for their food."

Cisco propped his chin in his hand and beamed at her.

"Puta," the girl said.

Cisco's grin dissolved. "Get me your manager."

"Cisco - " Caitlin said in a low voice.

"Quiero hablar al jefe," he said, lips flat.

The girl disappeared, and Caitlin looked across the table at him. "Really?"

"Did you hear what she called you?"

"I know what it means, I - "

"It's not right," he said.

A man appeared and reached for the tray with the food.

Cisco shoved it out of his reach. "Uh, your employee was incredibly insulting to my friend just now."

"You'll need to leave."

"Are you even concerned about that?"

"We reserve the right to refuse service to anybody. Tonight, that means you." He shot Caitlin a disgusted look. "Both of you."

"People can be friends," Caitlin said, suddenly angry. "And whether or not either of us has a soulmate doesn't make any difference. We still get hungry and we still want a damn burrito and we still want to sit down to eat it and have a nice conversation."

"If you don't leave now, I'm calling the police."

"For what?"

Cisco rose. "Never mind. We're leaving. You're losing a hell of a lot of burrito business, you know. I'm letting all my friends know what kind of prejudiced jerks run this place."

The manager snorted. "I don't need business from vacantes." He stuck his arm out and pushed up his sleeve to reveal the name on his arm. "See that? I was fifteen. That's a real man." He sneered at Cisco.

Cisco's eyes narrowed, and Caitlin pulled him away. If they both got arrested, they'd have to call Barry and Iris to post their bail, and it was hard enough for their friends to get the babies to sleep without the phone ringing after ten o'clock at night.

Outside, Cisco paused to take a picture of the sign. He sighed. "Goddammit. Those were good burritos."

"Are you really going to tell everybody?" she asked.

"Hell yeah. We got a Google Map of places to boycott," he said. He put his phone away and turned to pull her into his arms. "I'm sorry," he mumbled into her hair. "This is exactly what you didn't want, isn't it?"

She hugged him back. Over his shoulder, she could see into the brightly lit shop, where the manager was glaring out at them and lifting a cell phone to his ear.

"He's calling the police," she said. "We'd better go."

* * *

They picked up a six-pack at a convenience store around the corner from Cisco's place, and drank most of it on his couch, talking about everything but no-mate rights. He set himself to being happy and silly and making her laugh, and mostly succeeded. She felt the knot of loneliness and frustration in her stomach ease up.

She turned down a third beer and drank a bottle of water instead. "I don't know, I might go see it," she said about a movie that he'd mentioned, _Finding John Smith_. It had just opened over the weekend and it was about a woman with an extremely common name on her arm, so every time she thought she'd found her soulmate, it turned out he belonged to some other man or woman.

Caitlin sloshed her water bottle a few times, debating, and decided to say it anyway. She'd been wanting to talk it over with someone, and she knew Cisco would have opinions. "You know, I heard in the first draft of the script, instead of someone who just hadn't found her soulmate for ten years, she was supposed to be a Singularity that woke up one day with a name on her arm."

"Mmm," Cisco said, scrunching his face. "Yeah. I heard that too. Kind of glad they changed it."

"Really? I thought you wanted more representation on screen."

He snorted. "Yeah, but not like that. It wouldn't have been about having a good, fulfilling life as a Singularity. She would have escaped the dreadful curse. And betcha ten bucks that they would have shown her sad and grey, with no friends and a crappy job, coming home every night to eat cereal on the couch and watch TV before she sobbed herself to sleep. In fact, that's probably how they're gonna show her anyway. And forget any mention or, hell, awareness of singularity rights."

She nodded. "I know, I know. It's problematic. But - I like the actress." She drank her water. "What would you do in that situation? If all of a sudden you woke up with a name on your arm?"

"I'd go looking for them."

"Really?"

"Why's that so weird?"

"Well - you're so insistent that it doesn't mean anything."

"I never said it doesn't mean anything, I just said it doesn't have to mean everything." His face softened, and vulnerability briefly shone in his eyes. "Look, I'll be honest - I stood on top of some high-rises a few times when I was twenty-one and I knew for sure I was a no-mate. It was a bad year, and some not-great years following it. I'm better now, but I'm a human being, and I want to be feel connected to other human beings. If a connection turns up? I'm gonna seek it out."

"You'll fall into each other's arms," she said. "And race to the nearest registrar."

He snorted, and the vulnerability dissolved like sugar in water. "Yeah, no, that won't happen. I want to get to know them first. Find out if I really want to spend my life with them."

"Get to know them?" she said, laughing a little. That was what the honeymoon was for. You spent a month learning your soulmate's likes and dislikes, their past, their dreams, their ambitions. It was a month of shocks, sometimes - for instance, she'd been flabbergasted to discover that Ronnie didn't like chocolate and read comic books constantly - but you worked it out because you were soulmates. "Really? You don't think your soulmate might be just a little insulted by you making them wait?"

"Look, if he or she doesn't get it, then I don't care what some all-powerful arm-writing cosmic power or whatever says, they're not my soulmate. Just that simple."

"What if they do? What if they're exactly who you want to spend your life with?" Which they would be. Because soulmate.

"Then we would get married. And my parents would finally approve of me." He made a face. "Woooo."

"What about the rights movement?"

"I'd still be part of it, because there'd still be women who can't divorce their shitbag abusive husbands just because his name is on their arm. There'd still be kids cutting their wrists or jumping off parking garages because they turned twenty-one and their arm is still blank. There'd still be tattoo artists who get shittons of money out of poor Singularities by secretly tattooing some random name. Me finding my soulmate wouldn't change any of that."

She smiled at him over her water bottle. "It wouldn't be the same for you. You know that. You'd be a mated ally."

"Yeahhhhhhh," he said, picking at the label on his beer bottle. "But you know what, Bare and Iris have been soulmated and married since they were eighteen, and they're still awesome, amazing allies. I'd like to be like that. If that ever happens."

"I actually think you would," she said.

"It could be you, too."

"No, it couldn't," she said. "When I'm ready to come back to the movement, I won't be doing the socials or the get-togethers. Just the rallies."

He opened his mouth, and she said, "Vanishingly small, Cisco."

"Not impossible," he said, but dropped it. "So, are you finally ready to tell me what happened to screw up your day? You know, before some fire-breathing activist called you to bounce his butt outta lockup."

She gnawed on the neck of her water bottle. "Oh. It's nothing. Just this stupid song that came on the radio at the store."

"Which one?"

She sighed. "Every Kiss Belongs to You."

"The Taylor Swift one? That song? It's the dumbest, sickliest, most mate-normative piece of crap I've ever heard."

"I know! I know. But it got to me. I started obsessing over how Jay was the last person I kissed and it was this whole spiral. I know it's stupid," she muttered.

"Aw. C'mere." He pulled her into his side. "It's not stupid. You're having a hard time. It's completely normal. You're not stupid, you're a human having human feelings."

"No lecture on the repressive nature of society's attitude toward kissing around after you get your soulmate mark?" Kids kissed and made out and had cute little relationships before names started showing up on their arms, but that was kid stuff. Practice. Almost like playing pretend. Adults didn't kiss or sleep with anyone but their soulmates.

He hugged her close. "I've lectured you enough tonight, don'tcha think?"

She curled her legs under her. "It's not even that it wasn't Ronnie who got my last kiss. It's that it was Jay."

"He didn't deserve a flaming bag of shit from you."

"I know," she said fiercely. "I know. And it makes me so upset and angry and sad that he got all my lasts anyway."

"They don't have to be your lasts. Not if that and a dumb song ruins your whole day. That's a level of misery you don't deserve."

She shook her head against his shoulder. "I know you mean well, saying that, but I don't plan on ever trying to find someone else. Even just for fun."

"Never's a long time," he said. "But I mean, you could just do it with somebody. Just to get the taste of actual human turdnugget out of your mouth."

She side-eyed him, twisting her mouth up. "Mmmmm." She was still getting used to the Singularity attitudes towards kissing and sex, after years in the mainstream. It was so _casual_. Cisco had once told her he'd kissed five people.

Five!

"Trust me, you could probably walk up to most of the people in the local group and say, 'so, hey, wanna make out? Because right now this genuine waste of oxygen was the last person I kissed.' Every single person there would be like, 'pucker up, buttercup, let's get that nasty aftertaste out of your mouth.'"

"Hmmmm." She propped her foot on the coffee table and twitched her toe a few times. "I don't know. Maybe. I'll think about it. Hey, how many updates have I missed on that webseries your friend makes?"

"Did you see the one where they were taking apart a microwave?"

"No!"

"Wow, you are so behind." He picked up his tablet and woke it up.

They watched four episodes, quiet except for giggles and whoops. When Cisco started fiddling with his stylus, she cued up the next episode on her own tablet and let him draw ideas on his, eyes sparkling. She watched him more than the screen, wishing people like the officer who'd called him a blank or the restaurant manager who'd called him vacante could see him now, buzzing with thoughts and plans and excitement. But they'd probably still just see his empty forearm.

"That's the last one," he said around one AM. "Want to find something else to watch?"

"Actually, I'd probably better go," she said, pushing herself to her feet and looking around for her shoes. "It's late."

"Aw, really? Okay." He gave her another hug. "Look, if tomorrow's bad too, call me. Even if you just need me to sing silly songs over the phone."

She nestled into his arms, thinking of the idea that had swum up out of her brain during the last episode.

He started to let go, but she held on. He tipped her face up. "Hey. You okay? Really?"

"I - " She took a breath. "So, um, hey, wanna make out? Because right now this genuine waste of oxygen was the last person I kissed."

He blinked at her. "Really?"

"Yeah. I keep talking about how I want to put Jay behind me, but I need to do things to make that happen, so … " She blushed and looked at her feet. "If you'd rather not."

"No, I mean yes, I mean - " he took a breath. "I'd be honored to be your last kiss."

She smiled at him.

"Even though I don't think - "

She held up her hand. "Agree to disagree, Cisco."

"Allllll riiiiiight," he said. He put the fingers of one hand lightly against her cheek. They were very warm. Little spots of heat. "Now okay?" he asked.

She nodded, resting her hands on his shoulders, and watched his face come closer and closer until she thought to close her eyes.

His mouth was warm, and soft, and it moved over hers gently, nibbling at her lower lip, dabbing kisslets at the corners of her lips, sliding back over her whole mouth.

She kissed him back, her hands sliding around his neck, pulling him close.

A few minutes or a few hours later, they drifted apart. He smiled at her. "Better?"

"Much," she said. "Thank you."

"Like I said. It was an honor."

She hugged him. She didn't deserve a friend like Cisco -

She did, she told herself fiercely. She did, and he did, and everyone did, no matter what was their soulmate status.

"I should go," she mumbled into his hair, and pulled away.

"Okay," he said, letting her go. "Drive safe. Text me when you're back."

She waved over her shoulder, aware that he stood at the door watching until she was walking through the brightly lit parking lot. Then he closed it.

She felt lighter.

It was a little silly. She was still the person who'd given Jay all her love and gotten nothing but lies back. But knowing he wasn't her last kiss anymore was like a stone off her shoulders. She hugged herself a little.

Her arm itched. She scratched it idly, fumbling through her purse for her car keys. It didn't do much good, with her skin covered by her coat's unfashionable full-length sleeves.

She shoved her hand up her sleeve and scratched at her forearm. God. It was really annoying. Were there mosquitos in Cisco's apartment or something? Mosquitos who only wanted to chomp on her right forearm?

In her car, she flipped on the overhead light and pushed her sleeve up. Under the streaks of red from her scratching, there were several smudges like dirt. Maybe that was what was prompting the itch.

She licked her thumb and scrubbed at it, then scrubbed again. The dark smudges didn't go away. It was a line of them, blobs and fuzzy lines like -

Like three words, arranged in a line under _Ronald Andrew Raymond_.

Her scalp prickled.

Vanishingly rare, she'd told Cisco. Only point-five percent of all mated people had a name appear after the age of twenty-one. And the statistics on a second name appearing? So tiny it barely merited a percentage of a percentage.

But not impossible.

* * *

After he cleaned up the beer bottles, Cisco stretched out on the couch to check emails and texts. He'd sent a raft of both out earlier to check on the people who were still being held when Caitlin had bailed him out, and got comforting replies that they'd all been bailed out as well.

Caitlin.

He'd hated seeing her sadness after Ronnie had died, and he hated more that he'd pushed her at Jay. He knew it wasn't totally on him - Jay had fooled everyone. Even Barry. Even Iris, who was usually so sharp. But still.

That had been a nice kiss though.

Maybe it would convince her not to bury herself. She'd all but promised to come back to the movement when she'd worked through things, he remembered cheerfully. It was a short jump from the rallies to the therapy groups. She'd been really good in the therapy groups, calm and comforting and bone-deep practical, especially with people who'd just lost their soulmates and were still dazed and trembling.

It wasn't too far a jump from the therapy groups to the social groups, either. Caitlin might think she was okay burying her heart along with Ronnie like the world expected her to.

But he knew her. She had warmth in her that wanted to spread itself around. Probably she wouldn't try any of the dating events, and that was totally her prerogative. Totally, he told himself. Her choice, absolutely. The dating events were a really hard sell to A.S's anyway.

But as long as she was connecting with others, she would be connecting to the world again. She'd be okay.

He grimaced and dug his nails into his forearm. Damn. It was itching like crazy.

FINIS


End file.
